Another revelation to come out of the Downing Street Memos this morning. AFP has the story here.
“US President George W. Bush planned to bomb pan-Arab television broadcaster al-Jazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror said, citing a Downing Street memo marked “Top Secret”.
The five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals that Blair talked Bush out of launching a military strike on the station, unnamed sources told the daily which is against the war in Iraq.
The transcript of the pair’s talks during Blair’s April 16, 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel’s headquarters.
Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the business district of Doha, the capital of Qatar, a key western ally in the Persian Gulf, would spark revenge attacks.
The Mirror quoted an unnamed British government official as saying Bush’s threat was “humorous, not serious”.
Al-Jazeera’s perspectives on the war in Iraq have drawn criticism from Washington since the US-led March 2003 invasion.
The station has broadcast messages from Al-Qaeda terror network chief Osama bin Laden and the beheadings of Western hostages by insurgents in Iraq, as well as footage of dead coalition servicemen and Iraqi civilians killed in fighting.
A source told the Mirror: “The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.
“He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.
“There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do — and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”
Another source said: “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men.”
A spokesman for Blair’s Downing Street office said: “We have got nothing to say about this story.”
Makes one wonder what else our whackjob leader wanted to do and had to be talked out of. What I want to know is why so many people that had information such as this have waited far too long to reveal it. If all the information that has come out in the past year had come to light sooner we may have had a different president today.
Can you imagine what he has in mind for Iran and Syria?
I saw the headline at Buzzflash and didn’t have time to read the story yet. I just realized how not shocked I was to see it. It had the same effect as seeing a report of him giving a speech. That’s a sad observation that takes outrageous behavior as normal for him. They have to go.
Maybe this will give new credibility to the attacks on the hotels housing journalists and other newsfolks who sacrificed their lives. Bush and Cheney are certifiably insane.
Great Diary.
Agree with you Rumi on the insanity of Bush/Cheney. How many journalists were “killed” over there. Always takes me back to the assault on the Italian journalist and her bocy guard. I will never believe that was a “mistake”. I still believe she was about to write about the WP in Fallujah.
Too many coincidences
74 journalists and media assistants killed since the start of fighting in Iraq in March 2003, two still missing
Thanks for the link Rumi. Too many stories swept under the comlicit media rug.
While I don’t believe in conspiracies, I don’t believe in coincidences, either.
How can you not believe in conspiracies? A conspiracy is two people deciding to do something illegal.
That’s why we have special criminal statutes just for the act. I don’t think this exactly fits the conspiracy criteria because Blair didn’t agree to bomb the network.
If direct orders or established procedure called for ‘perception management’ of ‘unfortunate collateral damage’ then it would be conspiracy.
I’m with you. We should be trying to catch that cat.
Every time a story like this comes out I get a vision of one of those big old vaudeville hooks reaching onstage to drag george away.
Goddess willing, if enough people on earth have the same vision together it must manifest itself.
I like that vision very much Alice. I still dream of the whole cabal being dragged out of the WH kicking and screaming.
Only I was being snarkier (is that a word?) about it in my diary.
:<)
I’ve said it before: What the fuck was he thinking? Oh, I forgot–he doesn’t.
Just how the hell was he going to pull this off? Qatar is friggin ally, moron!
How would that rationale go? “Oh, I was just bombing their office building, not your country?”
And just think: We have 3 more years of this insanity.
But they did bomb al Jazeera… in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
So good job in talking him out of it Tony.
Morning Spider…when did they bomb both places? I had never heard or read that? Can you even imagine trying to talk him out of anything once “God” told him to do something? lol (Not that it is something to laugh about).
morning leezy… here is the link from Reporters sans Frontieres:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=5945
And this was after al Jazeera gave the US their coordinates for the headquarters and were assured they wouldnt be attacked.
Holy crap. Thanks for the information. It is hard to keep up with all the illegal things the cabal has pulled.
If you watch the documentary Control Room, which looks at al-Jazeera’s coverage of the beginning of the Iraq war, the bombing of their Baghdad office and the death of one of their journalists is covered.
The film is well worth watching in its own right.
Thanks for those links. I thought when I read that also about Blair talking bush out of bombing Al Jazeer that he obviously didn’t do that good of a job as they were bombed several times and I certainly never thought this was some ‘accident’ on the part of our military. It only surprises me that this memo/transcript is coming out now. It looks like we’re going to see many many leaks by people in the know about all the nefarious plotting bushco has done sooner rather than later-which is good.
The first two times they could play the war zone spin –dangerous place, yanno? Qatar would be an expansion of the theater (dontcha just love that word) of opeartions — on the soil of an ally.
.
Yasser Salihee * Reporter Murdered :: Story He Died For
Tue Jul 5th, 2005 at 12:19:09 AM PST
Yasser Salihee (4.00 / 6)
Thanks. Your comments mean alot. There has been a number of police actions directed at Sunni clerics that I probably could have reviewed, but this is the first piece that really felt like Negroponte’s Honduran fingerprints were all over it.
[…]
by Hal C on Tue Jun 28th, 2005 at 05:49:35 AM PST
US Marines accused of murder ◊ Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie
… & Afghanistan.
Afghan Adventure – Two Missing US Soldiers Are Dead ◊ by susanhu
WHY DOES BUSH PUNISH IRAQI CIVILIANS – 30,000+ KILLED –
AND OSAMA BIN LADEN “DEAD OR ALIVE” HAS HIS FREEDOM??
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
My favorite wtf-were-you-thinking idea out of this administration was Feith’s impassioned defense of his memo suggesting after 9/11 to attack terrorists outside the Middle East. Where, you ask?
In addition to targeting journalists, there’s a parallel story of the detention of journalists by US & Iraqi forces which surfaces from time to time.
I often wonder as this web of deceit unravels just how much will come out. Nothing that hits the headlines these days surprises me. I also wonder about our soldiers that have been killed by friendly fire. <Tin Foil hat here> Were any of those soldiers questioning what has been going on over there. The torture, the WP, the missing journalists. I mean look how one of our soldiers told the story to the Italian media about the WP. Was he afraid to talk to US media?
It’s way beyond sad or alarming.
Check this one out…
Bush bombed the hell out of Al-Jazeera in downtown Baghdad, just around the same time he launched tank shells into the Palestine Hotel, which housed western media.
If you weren’t embedded and thereby controlled you had to be sent a very stern warning.
What the hell ever happened to the lines we don’t cross to compromise integrity in our actions?
Thanks for that. I somehow missed that one.
Integrity’s not profitable enough quick enough. This is the “hit & git” administration. Go in, loot, pillage, and burn. Tomorrow is somebody else’s problem.
To compare them with rocks (as in “dumber than a box of” is to insult most of the rocks I’ve known.
We might not see anymore secret memos coming out for awhile after this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10153489/
What our country has been turned into is pathetic and so very dangerous. It is one thing to be a schollyard bully. Quite another to become the bully of our planet. Bush thinks because he can control the media here that he can do it anywhere he doesn’t like what they are saying. What an effing embarrasment. George and his cabal need to be impeached.